Camelot congratulates responsible National Lottery Retailers

Camelot has congratulated National Lottery retailers after news that 89% of retailers visited in 2016 correctly asked for ID as proof of age on the first occasion – up 3% on 2015’s results. This was following the company conducting 11,600 such visits last year – as part of its long-term commitment to preventing underage and excessive play of The National Lottery.

As the mystery shopping visits kick off for 2017, Camelot is now in the process of reminding retailers of their responsibilities in this area. A leaflet and terminal sticker will be landing in all National Lottery retailers with top tips on acceptable forms of identification, what to do if a customer appears to be underage or playing too much, and ways of ensuring all staff are correctly trained.

Camelot’s Head of Retail, James Pearson, commented: “To play any National Lottery game, you must be 16 or older. Obviously many retailers already have their own underage policies in place – such as Challenge 21 or 25 – but we’re doing all we can to provide support and guidance for National Lottery products specifically. So, while ensuring people under 16 aren’t playing our games is vital, it’s also important that retailers look out for people who might be playing too much.

“We hope that the leaflet and terminal sticker provide retailers with some easy-to-use top tips – and we’ll also be conducting telephone calls and face-to-face visits to talk through what it means in their individual store. We’re delighted with the 89% pass-rate and I’d personally like to thank all of our retailers for this achievement. I hope that we can all work together to do even better in 2017.”

Camelot’s mystery shopping programme has been in place for over a decade and uses young people who are over 16, but who look younger. If a retailer fails a mystery shopping visit on three occasions, their National Lottery terminal will be suspended and is likely to be removed. In addition, if a retailer is worried that one of their customers is playing too much, details of GamCare – the leading provider of information, advice, support and free counselling for the prevention and treatment of problem gambling – can be found on the back of all National Lottery tickets and Scratchcards.

Camelot UK Lotteries Limited is the licensed operator of The National Lottery® and is committed to raising money for National Lottery Good Causes designated by Parliament. Camelot is not responsible for distributing or awarding these funds.

Each week, Camelot generates over £30 million for National Lottery-funded projects – in total, £36 billion has now been raised and more than 500,000 individual grants have been made across the UK, the biggest programme of civic and social regeneration since the 19th Century.

The National Lottery has so far awarded over £62 billion in prizes and created more than 4,400 millionaires or multi-millionaires since its launch in 1994.

Camelot runs the most cost-efficient major lottery in Europe, with around 4% of total revenue spent on operating costs.

National Lottery retailers earn 5% commission for each draw-based game sold and 6% on each Scratchcard sold – as well as 1% on certain prizes paid out in-store. On average, National Lottery retailers earned over £7,000 in commission per store in 2015/16. To date, National Lottery retailers have earned over £5.8 billion in total sales commission.

The UK National Lottery is ranked at just 62nd in the world in terms of per capita spend, despite being the sixth largest lottery in the world by sales – clear evidence of Camelot’s longstanding commitment to being a responsible operator (Source: La Fleur’s 2017 World Lottery Almanac).